


With Pride

by VendelynSilverhawk



Series: Inquisitor Yvain Trevelyan [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Nightmares, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-Trespasser
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-06-23 11:22:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15605202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VendelynSilverhawk/pseuds/VendelynSilverhawk
Summary: Cullen reflects on his romance with Inquisitor Trevelyan. Dark AF.





	With Pride

**Author's Note:**

> Just some little thoughts! Narratively speaking they occur after the previous installment of this series.

Ever since he met her and realized that she was stronger in all the ways he was not, better in all the ways he could not be, he had been hopelessly in love with her. It was a quiet thing at first. It was soft and warm, easily startled and not entirely explainable, so he had simply born it in his chest until she took him to the battlements and said, in no simple terms, that she wanted him.

               That was when the small and simple thing turned into a very large and very unmanageable fear.

               All his life Cullen had sought to validate his choices. After so many mistakes and so many scars it was the only option left to him.

Purge the Kinloch Circle because Anullment was the only option, because that was what Templars _did_ , and he could not have endured all of that simply to do nothing.

               Follow Meredith in Kirkwall even though she was unraveling at the seams, because he had seen firsthand the dangers mages held and this was what Templars _did._

From the moment he chose, at age thirteen, to enter the Order, he had been validating his choice to do so in the hopes that it would bring his family pride, would make him worthy of being on the Maker’s earth, would give him the chance to be part of something bigger and better and far beyond himself and his human limitations. But then suddenly all of it was in ruins. He was the Commander of heretic forces in direct opposition to the Chantry. He was crippling his ability to fight mages by refusing lyrium. He was not only a bad Templar- he was a traitor.

               And then the Herald of Andraste, the Inquisitor, was standing in front of him with eyes the color of new summer grass. Her arms wrapped around him and her forehead rested against his because, in her frightening boots, they were exactly the same height. She exhaled a small sigh- a tired and human thing- and said that she wanted him. The broken toy soldier who had nothing but the fervent hope that he was finally, _finally,_ doing what was right.

               Her pale eyes thoroughly and completely eviscerated that hope. The moment Cullen kissed her, practically slammed her against the battlements with the force of restrained passion, he knew nothing except that he was inferior. Any moves he made now to be the better person were measured against her esteem, and he felt as though every time she looked at him she was looking _into_ him. There was nothing of his heart hidden from her.

               So his greatest fear was that one day, in the middle of the madness of battle and revolution and a race to save the only world they had ever known from the largest kingdoms to the most insignificant soldier among the Inquisition ranks, she would look into his heart and find him wanting. Never had he wanted to be so worthy of something as he wanted to be worthy of her. Andraste forgive him, he had not even wanted to be a good Templar as badly as he wanted Yvain to look at him with pride.


End file.
